Berkeley Lab Search

A superfast detector installed on an electron microscope at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry will reveal atomic-scale details across a larger sample area than could be seen before, and produce movies showing chemistry in action and changes in materials.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab have used one of the most advanced microscopes in the world to reveal the structure of a large protein complex crucial to photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into cellular energy. The finding, published in the journal Nature, will allow scientists to explore, for the first time, how the complex functions and could have implications for the production of a variety of bioproducts, including plastic alternatives and biofuels.

For several decades, the nuclear science community has been calling for a new type of particle collider to pursue – in the words of one report – “a new experimental quest to study the glue that binds us all.” This glue is responsible for most of the visible universe’s matter and mass. To learn about this glue, scientists are proposing a unique, high-energy collider that smashes accelerated electrons, which carry a negative charge, into charged atomic nuclei or protons, which carry a positive charge.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab have turned parts of a 13,000-mile-long testbed of “dark fiber,” unused fiber-optic cable, owned by the DOE Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor that could potentially augment the performance of earthquake early warning systems currently being developed in the western United States.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is credited with discovering more elements on the periodic table than any other institution. In celebration of its 150th anniversary, we look at how far it’s come and where it’s headed.

To help solve a big data program for a new telescope that will conduct a major sky survey of the from the high desert of Chile, a scientific collaboration launched a competition to find the best way to train computers to identify the many types of objects it will be imaging.